5 Responses

1. Thanks for highlighting this book.

   Recently I was reading a booklet put out by RBC Ministries on “The Holidays of God: Spring Feasts” and learned some fascinating facts regarding the lamb in Egyptian cult practice and the first Passover. We serve a sovereign and all-powerful and loving God. Nothing about the first Passover was a coincidence. When God said he would destroy all the gods of Egypt, he meant it, and he did just what he said he was going to do. According to the booklet:

   “The holiday of Passover is celebrated on the 14th of the Jewish month of Nisan. Ever since its beginning, Passover, or Pesach as it is called in Hebrew, has been celebrated on the full moon of a month that literally means “their flight.” Even though Nisan usually corresponds with March/April on the Roman calendar, and even though modern Jewish communities celebrate their New Year on the first day of the seventh month (Oct.-Nov.), Nisan is the first month of the “appointed feasts of the Lord.”

   “The 14th of the month of “their flight” looks back to the origin of the first Passover and to the birth
   of the nation of Israel. Ever since Israel’s exodus from Egypt in about 1450 BC, the God of the Bible has asked His people to use this day to remember how He delivered their ancestors from the idols and slave- yards of Egypt.

   “Passover’s intent has been honored. On the 14th of Nisan, observant Jewish fathers tell their children how the God of their fathers delivered their ancestors from economic bondage and spiritual darkness. It is at the feast of Passover that Jewish parents still describe how God used 10 plagues to break the stubborn grip of the Pharaoh. The plagues began with the “killing of the Nile River,” which was worshiped by the Egyptians as a source of life. The plagues ended only after God took the life of every firstborn son of Egypt.

   “That final decisive plague came during the full moon of Nisan 14. Moses, the leader of the Jewish people, had instructed every Israelite home to sacrifice a lamb, collect its blood—the biblical sign of life—and with a hyssop brush paint the lamb’s blood on the lintel and door posts of their houses.

   “On the evening of that first Passover, the Lord visited Egypt as an angel of death. According to the Scriptures, the Lord took the life of every firstborn— people and livestock included—except where He found blood on the doorway. Only where there was blood on the doorway did He “pass over” and spare the life of the firstborn in that home.

   “To understand the killing of the paschal (Passover) lamb, it’s important to know that in Egyptian society
   the lamb, or ram (a male sheep), represented a pagan god of the Egyptians named Amon (also spelled Amun, Amen, or Ammon). Amon, whose name means “hidden one,” was considered the king of the gods and the source of all life on heaven and earth. According to the Egyptian zodiac, Nisan was the chief month of this god, and the 15th of that month during the full moon was believed to be the apex of Amon’s powers.

   “The lamb was so sacred in Egyptian cult practice that the people of the land were forbidden to even touch a ram, let alone bring it into their home, slaughter it, roast, and then eat it as God commanded
   the Israelites to do. To the Egyptians the killing of a lamb was a desecration of their religion! The Passover sacrifice was a direct challenge to their gods. To the Jewish people, the same sacrifice fulfilled a promise of the Almighty: “Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord.”

   “On the celebrated day of Amon, and at the alleged peak of his powers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob not only overcame Pharaoh, but desecrated the worship of Amon and gave the Egyptian people reason to believe in the God of Israel.”

2. Whether it is Amun, or Ra, at the head of the Egyptian Pantheon, the fact is this: They are no match for Yahveh, or Elohim.

3. My family celebrates Pesach every year.